Painting (Figures with Stars)

Joan MiróWW-1933-029617

1933·Oil on canvas·198.1 × 246.4 cm (78 × 97 in.)

<p>The "personages" we see here—organic figures with tiny heads, disjointed appendages, and schematic breasts—reflect the experimentation across media for which Joan Miró is best known. First in his Barcelona studio in 1933, the artist made a series of small paper collages from precisely rendered engravings of household and mechanical objects. Then, he translated these compositions into large abstract paintings, with multicolored, amorphous forms rendered in silhouette. Inspired by this series, Miró derived <em>Paintings (Figures with Stars)</em> as a cartoon, or full-scale preparatory work, for a tapestry commissioned by French art collector and gallery director Marie Cuttoli, effecting yet another material transformation of his original design from collage to painting to textile.</p>

Catalogue

Year: 1933
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 198.1 × 246.4 cm (78 × 97 in.)
Collection: Art Institute of Chicago
Artist: Joan Miró

Artist

Joan Miró

Painting

Joan Miró i Ferrà was a Catalan painter, sculptor and ceramist from Spain. A museum dedicated to his work, the Fundació Joan Miró, was established in his native city of Barcelona in 1975, and another, the Fundació Pilar i Joan Miró, was established in his adoptive city of Palma, Mallorca in 1981. Earning international acclaim, his work has been interpreted as Surrealism but with a personal style, sometimes also veering into Fauvism and Expressionism. He was notable for his interest in the unconscious or the subconscious mind, reflected in his re-creation of the childlike. His difficult-to-classify works also had a manifestation of Catalan pride. In numerous interviews dating from the 1930s onwards, Miró expressed contempt for conventional painting methods as a way of supporting bourgeois society, and declared an "assassination of painting" in favour of upsetting the visual elements of established painting.

Palma de Mallorca, Spain

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